Archives for February 2016

Innovation: The Great Divide

February 27, 2016 by Johnny Russo 1 Comment

Has any term been overused in the last 15 years more than innovation? Some companies live and breathe by this: Google. Apple. Facebook. Starbucks. Uber. Tesla. See a trend. Five of the six companies you just read are tech companies. Yes, even Tesla. Why can’t we innovate quick enough in other industries like retail, travel, and manufacturing? That is the great divide.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg said something that rings true: “There can be no great innovation without great risk.”

**A Little Different is Not Innovation**

If we do the same things slightly different, we are not innovating, we are improving. Innovation involves something bigger. Something greater. And innovation does not need to be defined as strictly a technological endeavour, although granted, there usually is a technology play. But a company can be innovative in numerous ways: allow employees access to any social media site while at work; introduce a flexible schedule for all employees; build a company gym with state of the art equipment to promote health; build a daycare on the main floor of the company. Innovation comes in many different forms, but let’s be clear: innovation at its core involves a completely different way of thinking or doing. While the outcome may be unclear – not everything passes or results in profits – the road to get there is, namely, do different, and do it large.

Innovation in Digital Marketing and Ecommerce

When it comes to innovation in Digital Marketing and Ecommerce for your business, think of how Uber can enhance your delivery timelines with same-day deliveries; think of how mobile adoption and shopping has scaled so quickly, and build entirely for a mobile-first attitude in everything you and your team does; for multi-channel retailers, think of beacon technology and how that can improve an in-store experience (think for an instance of you walking into an apparel retailer, you get a push notification from the brand’s app asking what you are looking for, you respond by voice and say “jeans”, and through a wayfinding system you are shown exactly where the pair of jeans and colour you are looking for is located, you try them on in the fitting room, and pay right then and there on your app); think too of reserved parking for online pickups in store; what about only accepting payments through a mobile wallet?

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Top 5 Reasons Employees Leave

February 6, 2016 by Johnny Russo 2 Comments

Talent is the most important thing to consider when building a successful company. Whether it’s a startup business or a company that’s been in operations for numerous years, people make a company primed and ready for success.

Granted, the products you sell or the services you offer are almost equally important, but the coffee doesn’t make the Starbucks experience unique. Their people do.

While I think we can all agree that hiring and keeping talent is vital for any business, why do employees leave? And why is it hard to keep employees for a lengthy period of time? In his remarkably successful book The Hard Things About Hard Things, author, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist Ben Horowitz says there are 2 reasons employees leave a company: they hate their manager, or they weren’t learning anything. While that’s a good start, I think there are 5 reasons in total.

1. They hate their manager

While I have been incredibly lucky to have only 1 mediocre manager or boss in my entire career (the rest were awesome!), this can be the main issue in employees leaving a company. If you can’t get along with your manager, someone whom you report to, deal with on a daily basis, and who sets your objectives and rates your performance, then that is a big hurdle to overcome. And if you don’t like your manager, the feeling is likely mutual. If mutual respect still exists, then this is perhaps salvageable. (Yes, you can dislike your manager, but still respect them). But more times than not, if manager and direct report do not get along, two things will happen: the employee will ask for a lateral move to seek another manager or they will leave.

Think about your organization: are there any obvious frictions between an employee(s) and their manager?

2. They Stop Learning

Horowitz is dead on when he states that another main reasons employees leave is because they stop learning. I would also add it could be because they never learned anything. If you have any kind of drive, you will want to learn as much as you can, either from your manager or leadership team, the position itself, industry events, or from your colleagues.

If your learning curve gets stunted or never starts, even as you keep wanting to learn, then perhaps it’s time for a change. One thing I have seen work in employees who stop learning or are bored is to swap positions with someone else in the department (for example, moving from email marketing to social media) or to change departments (for example, moving from Digital Marketing to Ecommerce operations). This forces you to learn new elements of a position and get your learning back on track.

If the above options are not possible, and it’s been some months since learning stopped, then maybe it’s best for employee and employer to part ways. Once an employee stops learning, it may be mutually beneficial to part ways.

Think about your organization: if you sense an employee is bored or has stopped learning, perhaps send him to an industry event to spark a flame, or see if there is another internal position he/she could fill.